Follow me on Twitter

I dropped by this site because my friend’s daughter has Cushings and I wanted to learn more. Is there any chance that Cushings might be manageable or improvable in a way similar to what Izabella Wentz proposes for Hashimotos?

I dropped by this site because my friend’s daughter has Cushings and I wanted to learn more. Is there any chance that Cushings might be manageable or improvable in a way similar to what Izabella Wentz proposes for Hashimotos?

Jayne was diagnosed with Cushing's disease and became pregnant despite her illness, which usually makes women infertile. Jayne was the subject of a Live Interview in the Cushings Help Voice Chat / Podcast series.

I would love to take one of the surveys mentioned in this news article. My Cushing’s went into “remission” just over 31 years ago but I still feel the effects of having had it. Pre-Cushing’s I had no problem working a full day, having a piano studio overflowing with students, going out at night, cleaning the house, being a normal mom...

Pituitary tumors, like those that cause Cushing’s disease, have significant effects on a patient’s physical, mental, and social health, all of which influence their work status and health-related quality of life.

Michelle is from Santa Monica, CA. She is not yet diagnosed with Cushing's but gained 50 pounds with no change in activity or eating. She sent an article on Cyclical Cushing's to her doctor at the Mayo Clinic.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved the clinical use of a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner — the ultra-high-field 7T Terra MRI — with unprecedented resolution that allows for more reliable images of the brain. The approach recently allowed the precise localization of a small tumor in the pituitary gland, which standard MRI had failed t […]

If you’ve got your finger on the pulse of health trends, it’s likely you’ve been hearing the current buzzwords “cortisol creates belly fat” and “cortisol causes muscle wasting and fat storage.” These are the type of catch phrases that gain momentum every few years. And although some of the fads and trends showing up seasonally in fitness are myths, this caut […]

Today is the 31st anniversary of my pituitary surgery at NIH. As one can imagine, it hasn’t been all happiness and light. Most of my journey has been documented here and on the message boards – and elsewhere around the web.

Patients with growth hormone deficiency due to nonfunctioning pituitary adenoma experienced excessive morbidity due to cerebral infarction and sepsis regardless of whether they received long-term GH therapy, whereas treatment was associated with a normal incidence of type 2 diabetes, despite higher BMI and more severe hypopituitarism in treated patients..

Meta

Scientists are trying to understand how childhood adversity affects puberty, but linking the two is difficult. Hair cortisol concentration (HCC) is a potentially useful biological marker of chronic stress. However, previous studies were unable to link childhood adversity to puberty in boys.

Research published in JAMA Pediatrics by Ying Sun and colleagues examined HCC and pubertal development in 1263 elementary school-aged children (age range 6.4 – 9.9 years) in China. Cortisol was extracted from hair samples and measured using a commercially available cortisol test kit.

For girls, breast development was assessed by the same pediatric endocrinologist using Breast Tanner stages, a scale of physical development. For boys, a Prader orchidometer was used to estimate testicular volume. The study found no difference in cortisol levels between boys and girls. Early breast development was significantly higher for girls with the HCC levels in the third and fourth quartile compared to those with lower HCC levels. Overall, the investigators found a 2.5-fold increase in the risk of early breast development in girls in the highest quartile of HCC compared to those in the lowest quartile.

Similarly, testicular volume in boys was significantly correlated (p< .001) with HCC, those with higher levels of HCC had larger mean testicular volumes. A 0.12-milliliter increase in testicular volume was observed with each quartile increase in HCC in boys.

This is the first study to measure the cortisol level in hair of children in relation to puberty. Scientists hope that additional studies will help us better understand the timing of puberty and how chronic stress increases the risk of early puberty.